न चोरहार्यं न च राजहार्यं न भ्रातृभाज्यं न च भारकारि | व्यये कृते वर्धतेव नित्यं विद्याधनं सर्वधनप्रधानं|
" Knowledge can neither be stolen by thieves,nor can be taken away by kings.It can neither be divided in brothers nor is a load on one's shoulders. The more you give it, the more you get it back,in this way,the wealth of knowledge is the best wealth"

Monday, 20 February 2012

Atharva veda older than Rigveda ??

It is normally thought that Rigveda was the first ever Veda to be composed and then the other Vedas were composed. But looking at the composers, looks like some parts of the Atharvaveda are older than Rigveda.
One major branch of Atharvaveda is said to be composed by Atharva rishi. He is son of Angirasa rishi and also called Atharvangirasa. Purans say that Atharva existed in the Swayambhuva manvantara.
As also, Atharvaveda is sadi to be the joint compostion of Bhrigu and Angirasa. And one composer was present earlier than Vaivasvat Manu and other composers of Rigveda. Hence Atharvaveda can be older than Rigveda.
Also if we study the topics these two vedas deal, we see that Atharvaveda is a very crude Veda which deals more with sacrifice, magical healing and black magic whereas Rigveda seems a bit more mature dealing with praises of gods and a part of history ( War of ten kings,etc) . So by this sense, Atharvaveda can be of an earlier era when less maturity about physical and meta-physical world existed. But we see that Bhrigus were then cornered and their relative verses in the Rigveda are quite less while that of Angirases are quite high. Some attribute that Bhrigus crossed sides and became the purohits of Asuras in Central Asia and later on again came into the Vedic fold. This also explains why Bhrigus have more hymns on Soma in Rigveda than any other family as Soma plant is found more in Central Asia.
i am quoting Shrikant Talageri who feels this wayhttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1oFOFfdVteLdLe2FqxkpHgw12OiVDT4AYuMXKBhxWxm8/edit